Netflix's Voltron: Legendary Defender

If it's really endgame, I'm not against it as long as they develop the relationship.

Yeah, right now it feels like just a mutual Rescue Romance as the two never had a chance to really interact.

I was more confused than upset by it, but then I read this article on the issues with Shiro potentially being the only character to end the series with nary as much as a Ship Tease besides maybe Pidge, and even Keith getting a girlfriend last minute while Shiro languishes just rubs me the wrong way. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned it feels like an aggressive attempt at no homo-ing Keith and I can't disagree. If they sincerely wanted it to be a thing then they should've put more effort into developing it earlier in the show.

Pidge is shipteased with Hunk.

She vehemently rejects it, but I guess it counts. It's pretty egregious that not so much as one character considers the possibility of romantic interest towards or from Shiro at any point, even knowing that he was in a relationship that ended badly before.

I think before the show got its plot railroaded in Season 3 Keith and Acxa we’re going to interact a lot more and develop a Dating Catwoman vibe. They’re just picking up with the time they have left.

Lotor's generals barely interact with the team as is, so even if Keith was still with them, there wouldn't have been much opportunity to develop it, given this season is literally the first time they've so much as spoken to one another.

I was really looking forward to reading the comments on S7 but holy shit this place is buzzing with so many conflicting views. I mean everyone's entitled to their opinions, but holy dang some of the stuff being griped on feels so nitpicky or projections because headcannons are run into the ground. Then again I admit I loved the season, little warts and all. Heck the only episode I felt was a waste for episode four with the game-show being Bob.

Otherwise, holy Hell I NEEDED this season. With so many things I love being destroyed or warped by SJW's and their ilk alike. The quality of Voltron's story-telling and characters to me was beautiful. Not perfect, but lord this is a cut above, especially with action shows being nerfed into action-lit comedies or outright LOL-random comedies.

If I wasn't needing to head out the door I'd put my thoughts in detail on the season. I will when I get back as I have a lot to say.

Also, yeah Admiral Mc-Idiot totally didn't deserve her photo at the ceremony, but I see it as Shiro and company honoring her last act was to make right what she did wrong. Hopefully its a case of 'we won't forget your treachery but we'll honor the good you did'.

Umm, did you need to bring politics into random post about gushing? Also bit confused since pretty sure newest season also entered the anti-SJW crowd's blacklist

I have to agree the Axca stuff just feels forced when we consider how things have gone. Doesn't help I see a resemblance between her and Keith even before we saw his mom who looks even more like him.

I really don't get the obsession with SJ Ws. What would they have even done to Voltron to make it worse? About the only cause I can think of is to make it so Adam, like, didn't die before we even met him, and that would have been an improvement in my book.

Well I seen sjw say the writers are monsters or deserve to burn in hell for season seven and they will never let the forget what they did.

It's probably easy to find people being hyperbolic or "cringy" in their frustration, but I think it's completely reasonable to be upset. Telling everyone, "Hey, we're gonna have representation in this season!" and then having that representation consist of two scenes and a barely-sketched past with a dead character is mind-bogglingly stupid. If they'd written the same thing but not trumpeted it in interviews and stuff, I'll bet the response would be more subdued.

That’s certainly an overreaction.

Edited by Beatman1 on Aug 12th 2018 at 7:28:25 AM

To be honest unless I missed something there wasn't much in terms of Axca and Keith beyond her old teammates implying she liked by referring to him as her favorite. Really just looks like them picking with her with the only thing standing out being her helping them and going to earth which doesn't require her to be romantically interested in one of the pilots to do.

I am still currious about how much the mice told Allura.

I don't mind Adam being a casualty since being gay shouldn't exactly make a character except from death. Especially if they are a side character. Really any implications would only exist if it was a main character or secondary main character.

Regarding Keith and Acxa, a blogger had me convinced on the theory they were half-siblings. Obviously that's not true XO

To play devil's advocate it sounds like Montgomery always tried to downplay Adam's significance and put the focus on Shiro as the main form of representation in interviews. Gave some backstory on Adam and explained the context of the breakup scene, but always came back to the fact that they were no longer a couple so don't expect them to get back together, and never said anything more than that we would meet him this season (which we did). Also we know for a fact that they had to overcome a great deal of heavyhanded Executive Meddling in order for them to even reveal that Shiro was gay in the first place. No actual indication that Adam would ever be a major presence in this season beyond his relevance to Shiro's characterization.

It's entirely possible that the awfulness with Ezor and Zethrid may have been their idea of a necessary "sacrifice" to allow them to make that reveal for Shiro. If that's truly the case, then that poses an interesting question over whether it's worth having one flawed but overall excellent gay character at the expense of three dead ones, or just having no representation at all.

As for the degree of hype and high expectations over Adam I feel that's largely the result of the marketing which is separate from the showrunnrs, as well as the fandom blowing things out of proportion as usual.

That said I am incredibly furious at this whole situation, although I aim the majority of my ire at the corporate executives who put the showrunners into this horrible situation in the first place due to their own prejudices. Those are the people who the angry fans should focus their attention on. Not the showrunners and voice actors who seem to have been trying to do their best.

Edited by AlleyOop on Aug 12th 2018 at 12:37:32 PM

That's pretty fair. I feel like marketers have been floundering lately, and not just in the entertainment industry.

Agreed, Netflix in particular marketed the Shiro reveal (and Adam) hard. Many of the S7 posters seemed like they belonged in a romance novel set in space, rather than an action show, and I distinctly remember the Netflix twitter account posting about how they shipped Klance in a thread about Shiro being LGBT. It's no surprise that the actual show failed to deliver what people expected when the marketers were so aggressive about it.

And I'm all for criticizing a show on its failings, and even being angry at the themes shown, but all the anger seems to be centered in Montgomery (with barely any hate aimed at Dos Santos) and Bex Taylor-Klaus (for no discernible reason I can gather), rather than at DreamWorks execs or anyone actually in charge of vetoing story choices.

I'm not particularly mad about Adam myself, since he was more of a vehicle for the Shiro reveal than his own character, but I understand those that are. Sadly, fandom is fandom, and the moment you threaten the creators, call them slurs and harrass them, you lose all credibility in your criticism. No matter how bad you consider a show or its quality, you don't threaten to kill the showrunners, production crew or the VAs (who have no say in how the story goes). I understand the criticism over the LGBT characters, but I think some people are poisoning the well rather than driving the discussion forward.

Isn't that more of the shipper crowd being angry?

Honestly? It feels so much more out of date as representation because it dropped more than a month after Steven Universe had an on screen gay wedding.

I wouldn't call this representation any kind of backslide when Steven Universe is by premise forced to rely on the Discount Lesbians trope. It's Bury Your Gays though, which sucks.

Bex Taylor-Klaus is probably a target for being more outspoken with criticism about the fandom's more rabid parts and willingness to troll antis, hence all the heat. And for playing a role in getting the Shiro reveal confirmed in the first place, but it's not like they write the story. Just became an advocate for something showrunners always wanted but needed to give the executives extra prodding with.

And it sucks that the criticisms are mostly coming from noisy shippers, because it was easier to point to things like the age discourse as ridiculous, but now they actually have something that is Right for the Wrong Reasons as opposed to pure wrong.

Edited by AlleyOop on Aug 13th 2018 at 11:54:47 AM

I'm not sure I follow this line of thinking? Representation is not a contest, especially when the two IPs are owned and produced by different people. By that logic shows should stop having LGBT characters unless they can do what Steven Universe does or can manage to "top" it. To put an example, a show like Star vs The Forces of Evil showing background gay characters kissing is not impressive because they're showing gay people exist, but because the IP is owned by Disney, who tries very hard not to anger the foreign markets, which can be quite homophobic.

Shiro being LGBT may not be "huge" like having a gay wedding on-screen, but it's well made representation, because Shiro is a realized character who is LGBT, not a character that exists solely to fill a quota. Adam, Zethrid and Ezor are another story that can and has been debated extensively.

Edited by DemonDamian on Aug 13th 2018 at 11:55:40 AM

It's clear that the staff wanted more but couldn't because of Executive Meddling and downscaled accordingly. They didn't need to kill off Adam, but I get why they might've seen him as more disposable.

This is a pretty good thread that elaborates on the whole Adam and Shiro situation.